


For Your Sins

by MarvelgirlOnAMarvelWorld



Series: For Your Sins [1]
Category: Demons and Gods, Loki laufeyson - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), marvel alternate universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Attempted Kidnapping, Attempted Seduction, Character Reincarnation, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Gore, Implied/Mentions of Pregnancy, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kidnapping, Like a lot of slowburn between Loki and OC, Mysticism, Past Character Death, Suicide Attempt, Suicide mentions, black magic, broken loki, character resurrection, major angst, slowburn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23919295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarvelgirlOnAMarvelWorld/pseuds/MarvelgirlOnAMarvelWorld
Summary: Loki loses the one he loves at the hands of the Allfather as his punishment for his crimes.Yet Odin is oblivious of the origins and the chain reaction his action causes. And Loki forgets, in his mourning, that time and fate can bring back all which once was lost. After all, as they say..."Nothing can break the invisible thread between two people who are meant to be together."
Relationships: God/Demon, James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Character, James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character, Loki (Marvel)/Original Female Character(s), Loki/Dark Elf!Original Female Character, Loki/Demon!Original Female Character, Loki/Original Female Character, Loki/Reader
Series: For Your Sins [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1724131
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	1. Prelude #1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki loses the one he loves at the hands of the Allfather as his punishment for his crimes.  
> Yet Odin is oblivious of the origins and the chain reaction his action causes. And Loki forgets, in his mourning, that time and fate can bring back all which once was lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a drabble requested through my Tumblr side-blog (marvelgirlonamarvelworld) a while ago which has as of now become an ongoing multichapter I'm working on.  
> Happy reading!

It seemed a bad dream, something unreal.

His body was livid, cold, didn’t know how long he’d been staring at the blinding white of the wall.

The chains were gone, a mere idiotic precaution for outings and visits to face the throne. His power now coursed and prickled his veins again, brazen and crazed.

“Your highness…Loki?” The soldier called, vacillate and more than frightened to say the liesmith’s name out loud; for only chaos brought his call. His baby blue eyes betrayed and displayed that fright disguised under plates of gold.

“Leave…and thank you,” his eyes never drifted from the white. Didn’t even noticed the startle in the soldier’s features at his distant politeness before turning and scurrying away.

Loki didn’t know why he’d thanked him. Didn’t have time to reproach himself or second-guess now. His mind was somewhere else. He was in a daze.

“Dead,” he murmured. The four-lettered word fluttering in the air before withering away just like its foretelling.

Yes. That was what Odin declared with a sneer on his face and crinkles around his eyes. Dead for his penalties.

_“My, to what do I owe this sudden outing from my comforting cell?” Loki shifted his weight and stood upright. His grin elongating as he contemplated the one whom he’d known as mother, “Mother, why such grimace? Does it ache to see your child bound?” The now prisoner of war tilted his head and gazed at the Allfather. “Shouldn’t you be rejoicing as your king is doing now?”_

_Yet the Allmother said nay and wept in silence. Lowered her gaze and allowed the silent tears to shower her cheeks as her fingers fidgeted with each other._

That was no good omen. He should’ve known better.

_“Enough with your child act,” Odin deadpanned. “I have not called you here to fool.”_

_“Then, by all means, do us both a favor and cut right to the chase, as they say.” Another smirk made itself present on the trickster’s face and tilted his head; aloof and more than amused to notice his exasperation on his tense jaw. The chains rattled and shrieked as Loki made a hand gesture._

_“Very well,” Odin snickered._

_Loki failed to notice his malice until it was too late. That was his mistake._

Loki exhaled and his limbs trembled. His life left with every breath, with every shudder, every blink.

He had nothing again. Everything was taken away.

Loki fisted his hands. His knees met the cold bare cement and heaved for air that never came. The ghosts and shadows on his face never ceased to torment and take shape.

He’d taken it all, ransacked every bit, taken away his humanity. His will to live.

Murdered him mercilessly without even killing him. How funny, fickle…cold.

_“I have called you here to have you know the final verdict.”_

_“Will you finally swing the axe?” Loki pondered more than amused. At least his suffering would cease to be._

_The Allfather’s face was not his face as his smile spread. That twinkling eye reflecting twisted calm, and softened line along his forehead, were a contrast. The face was that of revenge. He should've known it then. “I already have.”_

_Silence engulfed the golden room and sunk in with the weight of Odin’s delivery._

_Loki’s face paled and his eyes sunk. The prisoner became a ghost without being he the one dead._

_“No,” his breath faltered and stepped back warily. Odin’s smile though contradicted his negation. “No…”_

A guttural scream rattled his bones, battered his soul, destroyed all his hopes.

She was dead. Brutally murdered. Taken away. He hadn’t even said goodbye to her.

Furniture crashed against the walls until nothing but destruction lay on the floor. Until it all became nothing but dust. Until the cell was no more than a cage where a wailing creature wept and moaned.

Loki had lost. Was nothing no more.

Another scream ricocheted in the cell. All creatures nearby went silent at the trickster’s rage. Froze on their place and dared not to look his way and trembled to be his witness.

Her name was screamed to the skies who wept along. Who mourned his injustice, his loss, her crucifixion.

_“Your punishment will be to carry the knowledge that your beloved died by the hands of your vanity, for the sole purpose of mending your sins. To see her in your sleep, and have her wither by the dawn of reality. That is my verdict.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! It is deeply appreciated!


	2. Prelude #2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki mourns the death of his love and is given one last chance to see her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bring to you the second prelude of the fic. And a massive THANK YOU for reading and showing this story some looooooove!!!!

She was there. 

Footsteps away. 

Eyes closed, head resting on a feathered pillow, tender innocent features making it seem she was asleep.

The night breeze gliding through the balcony incited the flames of the fires to violently flare before his trembling figure. Desperately created shadowed figures on the walls. Brought to life peering entities whose silhouettes resembled that of angels on guard. Yet Loki paid no attention to it, to _them_. 

His focus was on her. His angel now dead before his glare. 

Norns she was there! 

Before him! 

Hair delicately combed and styled, hands resting on her sides, a delicate black dress combining with the coal of her hair.

She was there…

It made his chest ache again if not more than the night the news was brought to light. Incited that all too familiar oppression to envelope his body while he helplessly gasped for air that would never reach his breast. Called denial to penetrate his veins and clouded his gaze.

“You monsters…” he whispered between gasps and glassy stares. 

She was there. His fallen angel, exiled from Eden, his wild winged damsel whose big eyes once screamed curiosity for the unknown. Who used to be his secret well kept; his Rúna. His angel. His saint.

No longer breathing. No heart beating. No longer with him… the idea made him dizzy.

“You’re all monsters…” his voice faltered as his knees almost gave in.

Loki could not bring himself to near the bed. His limbs did not respond, they had grown numb. He feared if he did…she would vanish.

Now more than ever he despised and wished to never have seen the one who’d brought him there. Now more than ever did he curse fate for having his only friend visit his cell for his heart could not take the sight of her under the mantle of eternal sleep…

_“Of all those whom I once deemed family and friend…never did I imagine it’d be you the one to visit first.” The illusion paced to and forth, trademark smirk as his shielding front, while those false eyes glared amusement towards the man standing across the barrier of gold._

_To the onlookers from the other side, nothing but godly normalcy lay behind. No remnants of destruction, no trace of heartbreak, no shivers of dread. The cage was once more a prisoner’s cell. Every array was in its rightful place. Yet the stagnant air of death clinging inside was present within the reverie._

_And the one inside, the one whose grin and twinkling eyes cast shivers and fright, was no more than a ghost of the true man inside the blinding white. A mockery that’d let the wrong soul to the axe._

_“Nonetheless, I am delighted by impromptu visits. I’m curious, however, you must’ve been there…” The illusion snickered, unfazed by the streaks of sadness reflected on the man’s face. Completely ignoring the same guard that’d brought him back who was standing beside. “Tell me, my good old friend…how did she die? How much did she suffer?”_

_The raven-haired clasped his hands behind his back and continued to smile wide. The ghost was expectant, delightfully waiting for a response that’d only made him rejoice but completely break the real sorcerer disguised in the foreground._

_“How much did Odin rejoice?” He then asked. “How much did his eyes brighten to see her veins_ **_gush_ ** _rivers of red, to contemplate her limp flesh decorating his pristine golden stairs, to witness gray clouds overtake the light behind her eyes…” a nerve-wracking laugh echoed inside, “How grand was the pleasure, pray tell you must have seen it in his face, to unknowingly murder not one but two beating hearts?”_

_Yet there was no response. No reaction but that of paling shock from the meager guard still standing beside the imposing man whose face was a riddle itself. Nothing at all but quietude and averted glares from the creatures inside other cells._

“Your intentions were ill-intended. I should’ve known better…” Loki whispered.

_“Your highness,” the proud son of nine mothers spoke at last. The shimmering yellow light contoured and contrasted against his dark skin, showering his features humbly as he stood before the ghost and maintained his empty glare._

_His eyes were pools of gold, two blinding suns; expressively loud; annoyingly cryptic; impossible to penetrate. He was one, if not the only, of few whom the incarcerated god failed to read._

_“Ah, bashful formalities…” the illusion spoke with arched brows and bared teeth into a wide grin. “I thought we were past such things. Are we not acquaintances?”_

_Heimdall breathed in and lowered his eyes as a side smile loomed for a while. “Yes, we are, Loki. But I cannot speak of it.”_

_The golden-eyed knew to paint a picture would only break his friend further. Destroy the little sanity still flickering beneath the rubble of his fury._

_“Why have you come then, if not to indulge me in the grim details of her death?”_

_“I am here to take you to her before she is taken.”_

_His words fell upon the illusion like shrieking lighting. Struck the human-less figure so blatantly it fizzled, almost diminished in a beat. Brought the real god’s bloodshot eyes to glance at the man behind the barrier as the illusion continued to mimic his moving lips._

_“I see you’ve acquired a rather bleak sense of humor,” the illusion grinned._

_Heimdall fell silent, no longer focused his attention on the pacing ghost. Deemed their conversation a thing from the past as his eyes locked with the guard and nodded; an unspoken order as the golden field diminished and stole the reverie with it._

_Now laid before them the true shell inside the cell._

_“You know better than to sacrilege the dead, Heimdall.” Loki’s voice was hoarse from screaming his lungs… from mourning her loss._

_A tear rolled down the golden-eyed’s cheek._

_Loki was no longer himself. Nothing. A creature. No longer a man or a god or a royal, but a limp body slumped against the smooth marble-like wall. Ungraceful thing staring at nothing yet looking at everything. A pale ethereal ghost, dirty smeared angelic thing, resembling a beast who did not belong amongst them all._

_Heimdall stood before his form and offered his hand. “And you know better than to refuse to acknowledge the dead brings forth our strength, young prince.”_

_Once again the shackles made themselves present. Prickled his wrists and repressed his flaring desire to bring forth bloodshed and revenge._

A tear rolled down his cheek. Loki’s mind did not cease to torment his soul. It did not quiet and stopped flashing the atrocities she’d surely endured for his sins and Odin’s desires to punish him. 

“Leave,” Loki stated while his eyes remained on the fallen angel sleeping eternally on the altar.

“My son…please,” The Allmother pleaded and attempted to reach his bruised hand.

“I said LEAVE! GET OUT!” Loki screamed and turned to face both figures standing behind. “YOU ARE ALL MURDERERS! BLOODLESS KILLERS! SHE WAS INNOCENT…” momentarily he paused, ”she was innocent…” he whimpered breathlessly and glared at the Allmother. All he could see now was a betrayer. The other executioner. “She was innocent and you killed her. Took her away from me…Get. out.”

Loki was a boy, a vulnerable child in Frigga’s eyes. Her child. The one she’d failed to protect. And as much as she wished to mend it all there was nothing to be done except to do as he said. Thus she trailed behind Heimdall and left him alone.

Though the shadows did not obey. No. They stayed. The tall figures remained along the golden walls of the healing chamber and continued to observe as the prince hesitantly approached the bed where she laid.

Right away the trickster’s strengths shriveled in an exhale, in a tortuous gulp and whimper as his knees finally gave in before her. 

And his emerald stare contemplated every detail of her face. Memorized the hue of her skin, the rosy of her lips, the long lashes and soft glow of her skin against the fires; all while his hand hesitantly reached hers. And his face contorted, twisted and paled, in horror to feel the cold embracing her. 

_Oh, how stupid of him, how naive to make himself believe the possibility, it all had been a trick. Deceit siding with Odin._

The flash of the letter she had slipped to him during the first trial tormented his mind as his hand reached to lay on her abdomen. The small bump hiding underneath the black silk garment spoke truth of the second heartbeat Odin stole away from him. 

A harsh lump formed in Loki’s throat. A barrier that muffled his voice and rattled his bones. Shook him to the core as his forehead rested against the small bump and ever so slightly peppered salty kisses between moans and unintelligible groans.

For it was true. Every single sentence. The fruit of their secret romance, of promises made which were all broken in the end. 

His child. _Their_ child. The life forming inside, was no more than a letter hidden between the pages of a book. An incomplete future. A little prince or princess Loki will never get to meet. Odin took that and more away from him.

They were there.

Before him.

Two lives, two souls, two hearts, two smiles all faded to the night. Two somebodies resting on an altar displayed like saints for all stares and admirers. 

“So it’s true.” His voice was hoarse, almost nonexistent from weeping and screaming.

Tears fueled Loki’s strength to sit on the edge and stared at her before he clutched her body to his chest. 

“So it’s true my love,” a trembling kiss was laid on her crown in a lucid blink. “So it’s true, it’s true, it’s true, it’s true, it’s true…”

His left hand rested against her back, blatantly feeling the scarring and torn flesh between her shoulder blades. The place where her wings used to be. 

Onyx velvet things, so graceful and soft Loki always marveled to touch. They were no more. 

And the flashes and memories of her death were nestled in her damaged flesh. Hid and waited to seep within his touch and did not cease until every detail laid out grim and neat in his memory. Charred deep in it.

All for his sins.

All for him.

A scream ricocheted against the golden walls as Loki clung to her dead body. Refused to accept what was shown to him and rocked her body to and forth, buried his nose in the crook of her neck, kissed and breathed in her scent. 

And the shadows continued to guard, to linger, to watch as the broken prince wept her name to the night. As his hands clutched her tight and pleaded for forgiveness which would never reach his heart.

“Please forgive me…” his cold palm sought to caress her face, tender and rich yet cold as the snow; no longer warm and welcoming like the flames of the morning sun. “Rúna, Rúna, Rúna…” his lips grazed hers as her name continued to be preached to no end. 

It was better to clamor her name than bid farewell. To pretend. To imagine she was only sleeping momentarily.

“Please come back to me…please!” his jaw trembled and stiffened a whimper. Swallowed it, drowned his sorrow in it. _“Please_ …forgive me. Oh! Please…”

A sudden whoosh of air crept through the balcony and stole the life of the fires. Darkness and cold now embraced the room whole. And soon the winged shadows stepped forth from the walls and took form.

Tall and mighty. Their cold presence was impossible to dismiss, yet Loki did so in his fog. For a moment, a dreadful stance.

“ ** _It is time.”_**

A deep voice echoed in Loki’s head. Made all hairs stand on end as his eyes opened and acknowledged the guarding figures; the hooded entities whose wings caged them in their circle.

To question who or why was unnecessary. Loki knew well who they were. Rúna spoke to him about them…

“No,” Loki rasped and shook his head. His arms stiffened and pressed her dead body to him. Clutched her for dear life while his eyes never darted form the figure that’d stepped forth before him. “No. No.”

“She must come with us.” Though the pantheon silence reigned in the chamber engulfed by darkness, the voice was loud and potent in Loki’s head. Paused and mellow. “Her being does not belong amongst you.”

Dread coursed and prickled Loki’s veins upon the figure’s statement. Right away he sought a remedy, a way to keep what remained with him. He concluded to bargain was the only way.

“Rúna said…” Loki tilted his head hesitantly, trying to dissipate the loudness of his heartbeat, before speaking again, “your powers outweigh that of ours. You can create and destroy life. You can provide and reach where we cannot…all for a price.”

“You who led her to slaughter wish to bargain?” A grim laugh echoed loud, sending shivers through Loki’s veins although the winged entity remained still. “Foolish boy,” the figure mocked. “But you are not wrong. Yet where her spirit has gone, I cannot reach, nor can I go.”

His eyes continued to gape at the winged figure though he could not discern a face through the cloak.

“Why not?” Loki implored with a small voice.

“She was never meant to be exiled. To be here.” The voice said. 

Disdain and pity tainted each word though Loki knew not why. Yet he continued to cling to her as he continued to listen.

“You see, all of us who were exiled from paradise had rebelled against the bleak promises of a so-called king. Yet she did not. She was thrown, cast out, for being the child of the one who brought forth rebellion. ”

“Then why have you come?” Loki snarled with glassy eyes and trembling hands. Its answer was dissatisfying. A vague confession he cared little of. “If she’s already far from your reach, what good is it to come now?!” A broken laugh echoed and withered in the dark, “You couldn’t even save her yourself!”

“Neither could you.” The entity thundered. “Don’t forget it is for your sins that she has died. She belongs with us… what remains of her soul cannot stay here. And that is why we have come.”

“Then take me with you!” Loki wailed and hugged her body tight, meekly sliding back like a child hiding from the shadows cast by the dark. “I beg of you…take me with you but please… don’t take her away from me.”

Silence embraced Loki’s mind. One such thing which was deceivingly short-lived. Enough to water the seed of false hope.

“You cannot come with us. You do not belong amongst us nor do I have the power to annul the punishment bestowed upon you.” Was all the figure enunciated as his hand extended before the trembling trickster.

A whirl of air rushed through the balcony as an orb of white light shone through the dark. As it emerged from her limp body and floated through the air. Refracted divine rays of light against the golden walls and twinkled in Loki’s frightened eyes.

“Wha…what are you doing?! Stop!” Loki cried out between ragged breaths and glassy eyes open wide. 

A cold rush of dread prickled his veins. Shut his system in shivers and silenced his mind with red flares. Desperately Loki pressed her body to his chest, her limp hand falling to the side in the process; clung to her as the small orb danced through space.

“No…NO!” Loki’s hands reached to grasp the floating white light yet it trespassed his flesh. “No please! Comeback! NO!”

In a blink and a drowned cry, the little white remnants floated on the figure’s hand. Remained there for the fastest heartbeat before the winged figure closed its hand and lowered it to his side. Again reigned the null.

Yet the tempestuous winds carried on as the same voice echoed to an overwhelming crescendo.

“Perhaps time will grant you a second chance.”

The figures stood there.

Before him.

With their eyes hidden by the dark and their wings enticing the northern winds.

“Or perhaps fate will.”

Loki cradled her body and hid his face on the crook of her neck. Cocooned her desperately and breathed in her scent. His cries and wails were all silenced by the winds and the booming echoes.

**“But never forget it was for your sins and your king’s arrogance that she is no longer here.”**

All noise faded to a buzz. The violent turmoil that’d formed ceased. The voice was gone but the words perdured.

Slowly Loki opened his eyes. And his throat dried the moment he noticed the emptiness of his lap.

A single tear rolled down his sunken cheek upon realizing…her body was no longer in his arms.

She was gone. Gone forever.


	3. Prelude #3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years have passed since Rúna’s death. Things have not been the same. Solitary confinement isn’t the best, although Loki has befriended a neighboring prisoner. As proclaimed Loki continues to see her in dreams, but things take a dire turn. And although his new friend’s contradictions, Loki might be correct on some things.

_“Was it worth it?”_

The young prince stared at the whiteness as the tremulous words fluttered in the dead of silence.

He didn’t answer right away, however; much like the last time, and the other time before that. Loki bid his time. He was trying to store in total permanence the way he saw her this time.

The broken prince tried to grasp the hue of Rúna’s eyes and the gown she had received him with just as her arms welcomed his heart.

“Yes,” he said at last and glanced at the empty cell across from his. His legs laid limp on the floor, much like his hands on his lap. “She was there.”

_Just like the last time and the other time before that. With her big eyes and closed-lip smile. Wearing the same delicate white gown which contrasted with the blackness of her wings and was torn to little shreds at the ends._

“Well?” The feminine voice interrogated, lacking rather curiosity which characterized well the dark elf from the adjacent cell.

His green eyes glanced at the long scar on his left arm, rosy and fresh. It traced over his vein. Tattooed temporarily. He knew it’d soon fade away.

“I’m still here,” Loki said. He had hoped for a different outcome quite honestly.

Couldn’t they just grant him death? He pondered again.

“For a moment I had imagined quite the opposite, your highness,” scorn disguised the pity the prisoner from the realm of the dark felt. Deep down the image of him being taken by the guards for healing had disturbed her, to say the least. “They did not return you for a long time.”

Loki chuckled sardonically. Tears welled his eyes at the thought of the bizarreness of time. It was a nonexistent fluency that tortured his heart.

Hours. Days. Weeks. Years…there was no such thing as time. Eons were nothing. Quicksand.

There was no time. Not there.

Down there where the prisoners lay, horrifying amorphous things whose sole glare made all hairs stand on end, such concept never existed; nor will it ever be brought to their heads.

Down there where the sinners pay for their debts, time is the beating of their hearts, the blinking of their eyes, the passing of every standing guard, every single scratch made to the wall….the speed of their blood rushing through their veins, the steadiness of their breath.

“It seemed so brief,” Loki commented with his eyes glued on his arm. “she looked so full of… _life,_ ” he closed his eyes as another chuckle echoed in the cell; traveled and reached the pale figure sitting against the same wall as the prince at the other end. “And curse will be I for all I wished was to scream, reproach, ask her why…why…but she was so selfishly silent,” Loki breathed deeply, swallowing a sob, clenching his jaw.

Why, why, why! It was all Loki wished to ask. Yet the moments he’d been close to hearing an answer from her part, Rúna faded to ash. Every single time he was awoken by a mild disturbance. No matter what he tried. But this time. This time he was brought back.

The Allfather rejoiced on that, he had not a single bother. The Allmother, she wept her heart out. His brother…perhaps he was none the wiser of him.

All their brief instances were a blink. And for that, he abhorred her image, loathed it as much as he treasured it, as much as he sought it regardless. How stupid. He still loved her despite she had become his punisher.

To always see her in his sleep, every instance he closed his eyes, she’d be there. That’s what Odin proclaimed.

“You have to stop doing this,” his dungeon acquaintance spoke again. “This will only bring you demise, Loki.”

“Oh, however can I fall any lower if I’m already crawling in the deepest corners of hell?” the broken prince chuckled bitterly. “To breath when her heart no longer beats is the worst of punishments, you naive _thing_. This _is_ my demise.”

Loki placed his head against the wall and closed his eyes as an illusion played for all those curious eyes. His long-running disguise.

* * *

_“Was it worth it?”_

The same tremulous message echoed from the adjacent cell.

He’d done it again. A second try after how long now? It couldn’t be known though. Yet the same illusion of normalcy continued to masquerade the cell. His double paced while the real self sat somewhere else.

Again the prince bid his time to respond to the elf who was his acquaintance; Ava. And just like the last time, and the time before that, now too, Loki persisted to store in his memory how he’d beheld Rúna this time. Unbeknownst to him, this time, would be the last.

“Yes,” he said in a hushed tone while he distractedly stared at the cell across. He noticed this time it had an occupant; an ugly creature of some sort.

Every detail mattered now, every posture, every color, every hue could not be relinquished. For he’d realized there was more. Yes. The broken prince again tried to retain her image, the way her eyes twinkled, her rosy cheeks, her dress torn to shreds at the ends.

And that feather. That single white feather standing out from that ocean of blackness. He now realized it to be new! A new detail to store!

A single white feather on her left wing. A little white feather.

“She was there,” Loki sat crossed-legged on the floor, his back rested against the same wall he’d sat the last time and the time before that.

Ava too rested her back against it from the other side.

“Well?” The dark elf pondered dryly. Although her stone facade, Ava was fearful to hear his distraught response again. It marred her to heed his royal neighbor mourn and punish himself more.

“Her wings had a white feather…” a smile adorned his features. Bright against the grimness of his life, youthful, hopeful. It’d been ages since a true smile had come upon him. A shame Ava couldn’t gaze upon it. “A single white feather.”

To picture how it contrasted so blatantly brought some joy to his soul. There was just something about that feather which eased his conscience. It made him despise her less than he did…was it yesterday? Or perhaps a few years since he’d endeavored his luck to spend time beside her?

Again what was time but a day which was eternal.

Just like his last attempt, Ava breathed in and said: “Loki, stop, you have to stop doing this to yourself…”

His ears listened to his friend’s pleas but then he remembered, in a split second, a faint detail that’d slipped over him. The best of all the details!

Loki unfolded his legs and smiled wide even his teeth could be seen. “She said my name, Ava, she said my name,” a tear rolled down his cheek which withered in the curve of his lips. “Never before has she spoken to me! But this time…this time, oh Norns, she spoke.”

There was a pause, a mesmerizing moment of silence as Loki remembered the sweet melody of her voice. It even opaqued the cloud of sadness in his eyes. And like never before his face beamed in joy at such detail. His name was a song on her tongue. A lyrical prayer.

_Oh, but what if somehow Rúna could still…be?_ He wondered. _Could it possibly be she still existed on a plane where neither death or life meshed, a gray space?_

“Ava, what if…” his eyes twinkled hope as much as his eager smile did.

“Loki,” Ava interrupted him, warning him to place his feet on the ground for he was soaring way too high. Her eyes closed as she hesitated. For as a friend to pull down the lens through which Loki saw things was bitter. “It’s all in your head.” She pursed her lips briefly, “Rúna…she’s dead, Loki. Gone.”

His breath faltered as the harshness of her message registered in his head. “Pardon?”

“Please forgive me but she’s dead! Time has passed you must accept she is no longer coming _back_. You have to, you must cease this self-martyrdom.” Ava sloped her head against the wall and glared at the white ceiling of her bare cell. The pained grimace on her alabaster face spoke tenfold of her concern.

“Dead,” the words fell out Loki’s mouth with the same sour taste as the first instance he’d ever said them. His chest ached.

“And what you see, what you…what you claim you witness in your dreams,” he heard her struggle to find the right words. And his heart feared she was struggling to enunciate what deep down a voice screamed to him at times. “It’s not _real_.”

No. Loki shook his head and stiffened his jaw. His illusion continued to pace.

He remembered Odin had stated he was to see her only in his dreams, only when she was within reach to fade. That was his true punishment.

“Nor what that buffoon said is real, Loki,” the broken prince heard his acquaintance state through his buzzing head drowning in questions and despair. “That fool is not as powerful as he claims. He’s a tale-tell, a farce, his power can only go so far…but he cannot touch where death lies! Death will not allow that.”

Loki chuckled airily and shook his head again. His eyes darted to the walls, to the barrier of gold, to his books piled by the cot where he slept and landed on the faint scar on his arm. But his eyes gazed beyond his self-harm and discerned the small necklace she’d given him laying on his hand.

A small onyx feather. He’d been holding onto it for ages.

Soon a grimace appeared in his face, a dark shadow of fury and disbelief as his eyes teared.“You know not what you’re saying you, foolish creature,” Loki fisted his hand, clutched the piece of jewelry angrily. “How do you dare to speak when you have not seen what my eyes have seen when you have not heard what my ears have listened…”

“Loki.” Ava stood her ground. But Loki was a stubborn prince still waltzing with denial. She wondered how dire must it all have been for it to spiral.

Abruptly Loki stood and glared at nothing with fisted hands “Shush!” He barked, “I will not listen to you! To your…your…” through his fury Loki struggled to find the right words, the harshest statement to silence her neighboring prisoner, “your idiotic blasphemy!”

Loki approached his fine golden stand with fisted hands. With a violent swat of his arm, all his books scattered in the cell as the illusion fizzled and threatened to vanish.

“You know nothing!” Was it denial or pure romance, Loki was none the wiser as he slumped down his bed. He just couldn’t accept… _it._ “I should’ve been there! I should’ve kept her hidden…I’ve should’ve done more!”

His hands cradled his head while his shoulders rested on his knees. Silently Loki breathed in and wept his frustration while he still held that tiny onyx feather.

* * *

The dungeons were unduly silent. The atmosphere within it too grim. No rowdiness nor conflict inside the cells but unease. An invisible cloud of anxiety settled throughout the dungeons and far out into the palace. It was a day were neither the birds high up on the tree of Yggdrasil chirped but the cries of a child echoed on a distant land.

“Gah!”

The trickers' eyes opened wide, wide as the mournful skies, frightened as those of a child; pale, glassy, alarmed as he sat up on the small bed of his cell. The vastness of the reverie faded to white walls, molded into books and stands, converted to the same barrier of gold keeping him from the outside world. The dream was gone. Gone, yet something was wrong.

Air could not reach his lung, nor his heart could pump enough blood. Cold beads of sweat glistened along his forehead. His body still struggled to wake. His mind still fought against the waves of momentary disorientation and despair.

There was a distant cry in his head.

Loki remained frozen on his bed, frightened for this dream he’d dreamt had been something else, something different. A nightmare.

A nightmare to store. Not Rúna but pure emptiness to keep forever and to always remember.

Regaining enough of his senses, Loki scrawled from the small replica of a bed in a panic his heart could not take. A grunt echoed in the cell as his body hit the cold floor. Right away he staggered and neared the wall he shared with Ava.

“Ava,” Loki stood against the wall and called to his now longtime friend. His voice trembled despair. “Ava!”

His mind flashed whiteness, the same vast whiteness where nothing existed but pure mist covering his feet. The same empty place where he’d seen Rúna time and time again. The niche he’d tried reach to be with her yet this time she wasn’t there. She was nowhere regardless of how long and far out he had walked inside his reverie. She was gone. Disappeared so suddenly. A thing which should have never happened.

“Good day to you, your _highness_!” Her tone was sarcastic, dry yet hopeful deep down.

This time the prince avoided formalities and spoke, bringing to light what unsettled his mind. “Something’s wrong, Ava,” Loki gulped his anguish. “I…I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t see her, she wasn’t there…” His eyes welled as his brain played time and time again the same empty dream. “Ava, something’s happened.”

But there was only silence. Ava said nothing. There was no reply but the pretentious echoes of Odin’s verdict from that dire night so long ago:

****_“Your punishment will be to carry the knowledge that your beloved died by the hands of your vanity, for the sole purpose of mending your sins. To see her in your sleep, and have her wither by the dawn of reality. That is my verdict.”_

Loki began to pace feeling his veins prickle with anxiety. They prickled with a rage of not knowing why this was happening.

“That must only mean you’re _finally_ surpassing her death,” Ava spoke at last in her same dry, pungent way. “You’re letting her go as you should have done so long ago. I congratulate you.”

“Oh, how dare you say that!” Loki stood in the middle of his cell with furrowed brows and a pained expression on his face.

“What must I say then?” She reproached sheepishly.

Loki exhaled and stiffened his jaw, already lamenting confiding on such a stoic being as Ava. It was futile to make her see.

He did not respond to her question but instead fixated his glare on the floor as Odin’s words continued to play in his head.

Again Loki began to pace and think, pace and think, pace and think. Left to right, right to left, left to right, again and again, and again and again the same trail while his mind drew conjectures here and there.

His illusion sat by the golden barrier, reading a book, oblivious of him. His composure seemed far better, cleaner and put together.

“Will you not speak to me now?” Ava interrupted his train of thought but he paid no mind and continued to draw conjectures.

His heart hammered rapidly, trying to equal the pace of his racing brain until abruptly he stopped with a shadow of confusion and realization soaring about his features.

“Dawn of reality,” Loki repeated suddenly. The taste enunciating those three words was bittersweet. It unsettled him as much as it filled him with fury.

Ava fell silent for a beat before speaking, “Is that supposed to mean something?”

Yet Loki ignored her.

Dawn of reality, he thought.

A nervous chuckle rumbled in Loki’s chest as renewed desperation bloomed in his self. There was some hidden meaning, something laying between those three words. But all this time he’s tried to make sense of everything he always realized how inconclusive such a statement was!

Or perhaps he was dwelling too much. Perhaps this was one of those out of the ordinary dreams…

Loki huffed and furrowed his brows. No. There was definitely something. Something was happening.

Or was he just forgetting? Was her image slowly wilting from his memory?

Loki stood in the middle of the cell. The white lights glared down his face showered by shadows of shock and terror. He couldn’t possibly be forgetting all those details he’d been treasuring, could he?

No. Loki shook his head and swallowed the sudden lump that’d formed. Shadows continued to form and contort.

Unbeknownst to Loki, to deny only reinforced what his future dreams would hold. Nothing. Perhaps he was indeed, truly, forgetting.

But was he really?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This new chapter is brought to you by: Loki's sad playlist (specially Don't Forget About Me by CLOVES)  
> Thank you for reading!!!!!!


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